I wanted to build an arcade machine, but rather than a MAME, which made me feel guilty about owning all my cartridges and not playing them, I decided to retrofit an NES into a homemade cabinet and control panel. I'll probably add some decals on the sides one of these days, but for now, this baby is finished. It has 2 joysticks and buttons layouts, 2 NES controller ports, which are switchable by the pushbuttons above them to toggle between the port and the sticks (in case I'm playing a light gun game, or a turbo pad, etc.) There's storage below in the slotted shelving, enough for 56 games. There's also a pullout drawer for extra controllers, game genie, light guns, etc. The speakers are a subwoofer in the center with two mid-high range speakers to the left and right. There's a mini control panel on the upper right that allows me to turn the monitor on and off, adjust the volume, and a headphone jack. The control panel overlay and marquee were my own design, but were made by Scott at MAMEMarquees.com The control panel is keyed, so my kids can't get into the guts of the thing.

_________________Ryan Grant
*Long Live the TurboGrafx-16*

Sun Jan 24, 2010 9:23 pm

raz0redSite Admin

raz0red
Joined: 29 Oct 2005
Posts: 661
Location: Britannia

Re: My NES Arcade machine

vintageclubjunkie wrote:

I wanted to build an arcade machine, but rather than a MAME, which made me feel guilty about owning all my cartridges and not playing them, I decided to retrofit an NES into a homemade cabinet and control panel. I'll probably add some decals on the sides one of these days, but for now, this baby is finished. It has 2 joysticks and buttons layouts, 2 NES controller ports, which are switchable by the pushbuttons above them to toggle between the port and the sticks (in case I'm playing a light gun game, or a turbo pad, etc.) There's storage below in the slotted shelving, enough for 56 games. There's also a pullout drawer for extra controllers, game genie, light guns, etc. The speakers are a subwoofer in the center with two mid-high range speakers to the left and right. There's a mini control panel on the upper right that allows me to turn the monitor on and off, adjust the volume, and a headphone jack. The control panel overlay and marquee were my own design, but were made by Scott at MAMEMarquees.com The control panel is keyed, so my kids can't get into the guts of the thing.

Wow!

I am very jealous. That looks very professional.

The front panel that resembles the NES in genius!

--Chris.

Mon Jan 25, 2010 5:08 pm

Harmik

Joined: 27 Jan 2008
Posts: 34
Location: Melbourne, Australia

That looks awesome, love the NES front.

Tue Mar 09, 2010 3:16 am

iamsjn

iamsjn
Joined: 05 Mar 2006
Posts: 185
Location: Phoenix, AZ

That is AMAZING! Excellent job!
Hmmm, maybe I will do something like that for my beloved Sega Genesis!

Nice to see people still posting here on the Asylum. I sooooo miss the gang. Hope everyone is hanging in there and getting a chance to step away from work and drop a few quarters!

iamsjn wrote:

That is AMAZING! Excellent job!
Hmmm, maybe I will do something like that for my beloved Sega Genesis!

Nice to see people still posting here on the Asylum. I sooooo miss the gang. Hope everyone is hanging in there and getting a chance to step away from work and drop a few quarters!

Shawn

The Genesis eh? I have been playing quite a bit of Genesis games lately... I was pretty much an SNES fan, "back in the day", but I am now catching up on what I missed. I am currently hooked on Alisia Dragoon, a very underrated game IMHO.

As far as the show goes.... Well, we have all been pretty busy lately. Dave had a baby girl, my wife is expecting in a couple of months (which has me remodeling the house), and Woody and Tom are busy at work.

I have been satisfying my retro passion by porting some emulators to the Wii and reading retro-related books and magazines (RetroGamer has been awesome lately!). I really do want to do a podcast again some day, and I definitely think we will... I just don't know when it will be...